


Palais de Justice (et Amour et Mort)

by Anonymous



Category: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-06
Updated: 2009-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Do you miss me?' Richie asked, and it sounded very strange. The dead are supposed to know everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palais de Justice (et Amour et Mort)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for La Dia de los Muertos challenge, 2004.

"So tell me what you've been up to," Richie said, settling onto the corner of the desk. He looked the same as ever, hair falling into his eyes, and mouth half-smiling. The soles were nearly coming off his tennis shoes, Eli noticed, in the way he noticed many things now—in flashes, details that didn't matter. The whole picture had vanished, like cigarette smoke into his lungs. "How's Margot?"

Eli got a quick glimpse of blonde hair and sooty lashes. Lids drooping under the weight of mascara and liner, and pupils dilated, that voice of cigarettes and wind. "She's somewhere."

"Where?"

"Else. Somewhere else." Richie would understand the concept of 'somewhere else,' the need to be anywhere that wasn't 'here,' as well as anyone would, certainly better than Eli did. Margot had left without a forwarding address three weeks after the funeral. A few days later, a postcard had arrived in Eli's mailbox. The picture was a mouthful of teeth, grinning like a skull; two of the teeth had been blacked out. The message was an M, scripted lavishly in green ink.

"Do you miss me?" Richie asked, and it sounded very strange. The dead are supposed to know everything. When the dead return, they're supposed to be able to tell you what you really need. They're supposed to give you strength for whatever ordeals you're currently undergoing.

"I miss the drugs."

"You've stopped." Richie sounded surprised. "I kinda thought that..."

"What, that you dying would send me into a downward spiral of self-destruction? You're not that important, Richie, not even to me." Eli wondered briefly if the dead could see through lies, if the bottom of that glass-bottomed boat in heaven was made of mortal falsehood.

"You said that I mattered more than anyone," Richie pointed out, his foot swinging idly.

"I lied," Eli told him, turning over a stack of papers so their contents were hidden. He didn't want Richie to see the poetry he'd been writing. The last time he'd shown Richie poetry, they had been teenagers, and Richie had looked at Eli and said, 'You don't mean any of this shit,' and they had torn the pages up, ripping slowly. He'd never told Richie that he had meant it. He'd never told Richie that Custer was based on him.

"OK."

That was how Richie was—how he had always been. He never asked for an explanation. He never offered any, either, and that must have been fair. Something must have been, so why not that? Eli's head used to ache from all the explanations he had ready, but Richie never asked for them and they stayed inside his brain. Lies and truths all looped together in there, and they tasted of ink and sugar.

The same way the peyote buttons tasted the first time, and every time after; Eli thought that he'd get used to them, but he never did, and now he never will. Of course, peyote's bitter, too, like regret. And that must be fair, too, because mescaline's not supposed to have withdrawal symptoms associated with it. It's not supposed to, but it does. At least it does for Eli, and Eli thought that this had a curious symmetry about it. He'd always been the exception to the rule—a New Yorker writing westerns, the child who kept in touch with Etheline. This was merely another example.

"Do you know what the worst part is?" Richie shook his head. "When I'm hallucinating, I'm happy. I hallucinate a while ago, before everything fell apart, and Margot and I found out what we wanted from each other, and you shattered under the weight of yourself, and we didn't quite have to lie, we could use half-truths, and that was OK, we could work with that, it was like a game, what could we say that would be accurate but not really give anything away, but the hallucinations always end. They always _end_, and you're dead, and Margot's somewhere and won't answer my letters, and Chas is making money as if it's real, and I'm in yet another place where I don't know how I got there, and the pain is enough to knock me out and the shakes mean I can't stop vomiting and the nightmares prevent sleep from coming for more than a few minutes at a time. That's the worst part."

"Eli..."

"I know. It was never me. Not for you. Not for anyone."

"If it could have been you, it would have been. I wanted it to be you."

"Your own sister, Richie. Your own _sister_, and I wasn't enough for _her_, either." He paused. Richie swallowed and rubbed his hands together, and suddenly Eli saw that his wrists were unscarred. "I think I fell for Margot because I could have her and you couldn't, but you got her and I didn't. I got the drugs instead."

"That's not quite fair, Eli," Richie said.

"None of this is fair. It's not fair that you don't have scars, is it?"

"Eli, I'm dead. The dead don't have scars."


End file.
